Costume designers Albert Wolsky for Birdman, Milena Canonero for The Grand Budapest Hotel and Colleen Atwood for Into the Woods were the feature film winners at the 2015 Costume Designers Guild Awards last night during a gala ceremony at the Beverly Hilton. Birdman toped the Excellence in Contemporary Film category while The Grand Budapest Hotel won for Best Period Film and Into the Woods for Fantasy Film.
Jenny Eagan won for Outstanding Costume Design in a Contemporary TV Series on the basis of True Detective (HBO). Costume designer Michele Clapton earned the award for Outstanding Period/Fantasy Television Series for Game of Thrones (HBO). And Lou Eyrich took the Television Movie or Miniseries honor for American Horror Story: Freak Show (FX Network).
Winning the award for Excellence in Commercial Costume Design was Christopher Lawrence for the Army spot, “Defy Expectations, Villagers.”
Special honors
The 17th Costume Designers Guild Awards were also highlighted by several special honors.
Director Richard Linklater received the Distinguished Collaborator Award in recognition of his support of costume design and creative partnerships with costume designers. Most recently, Linklater wrote, produced and directed the Golden-Globe winning film “Boyhood, which depicts the life of a young boy named Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane. Linklater collaborated with costume designer Kari Perkins on the epic 12-years-in-the-making film, which also stars Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason’s parents, and Lorelei Linklater as his sister Samantha.
Aggie Guerard Rodgers was this year’s recipient of the Career Achievement Award, an honor that recognizes her body of work in film. Having graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1970 with a Master’s degree in theatre costume design, Rodgers had no experience in film costuming when she was hired as the costume designer for George Lucas’ groundbreaking film, American Graffiti. Due to her experience growing up in Fresno, Calif., her understanding of the script and the vision Lucas had for the film, she got the job. It was produced by Francis Ford Coppola, who hired her again the following year for The Conversation. Her next film was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which was produced by Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas.
When asked about her favorite film experience, Rodgers always credits The Color Purple, for which she received an Oscar nomination. Two of her other favorite films were produced in the 1980s: Beetlejuice and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Rodgers has continued to design for film and over the last decade worked on Rent, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Holes, Life or Something Like It, and Fruitvale Station.
And the 2015 Edith Head Award for the Advancement and Education of the Art of Costume Design was presented to costume designer and scholar Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis, a CDG member, a two-term past-president and a costume design activist for nearly 40 years. Dr. Landis received an M.F.A. in Costume Design from UCLA and a PhD in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art, London. She is the founding director and chair of the David C. Copley Center for Costume Design at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and a Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Landis’ distinguished motion picture career includes Coming to America, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, An American Werewolf in London, the iconic Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Animal House and the music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller.” Dr. Landis is the author of many books including “Screencraft/Costume Design,” “Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design,” “Filmcraft/Costume Design,” “Hollywood Sketchbook: A Century of Costume Illustration” and “Hollywood Costume,” the award winning catalog of the landmark exhibition that she curated at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
